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A licensed copy of Quattro Pro
A pen and some paper (for taking notes)
About thrity to forty minutes
Quattro Pro is a spreadsheet program. A spreadsheet program is an electronic workbook that allows you to organize words and numbers in a logical manner and it also allows you to perform operations on those numbers. There are many practical applications for spreadsheet uses ranging from home to office use.
Quattro Pro is most likely to be used in some kind of financial setting. It is ideal for organizing large amounts of numerical information and performing calculations on that information. Quattro Pro will perform tedious operations on very large sets of data almost instantly where it might take a person half an hour to do the same task.
Here is a list of some basic spreadsheet terms we must know.
Below is an image of the Quattro Pro display.
If you select the menu you will see some very basic operations that we must discuss before anything else.
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There are two ways of selecting items from the menu bar. You can simply click them with the mouse or hold the alt key and press the letter that corresponds to that menu (the letter is underlined in each of the menu names). |
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A keyboard shortcut is a combination of keys that can be used to quickly access a specific function. Whenever a new function is introduced its keyboard shortcut will also be given, whenever one exists. |
Also, under the menu you will find the following:
When we were learning how to use the word processor, one of the first things we learned about was how to landscape the page and set the margins, we can also do this with a spreadsheet program. To set the page to landscape layout do the following:
To set the page margins, complete the following:
The cell pointer indicates where data entered will be stored. You can move the cell pointer by using the arrow keys on your keyboard or by simply selecting a new cell by clicking on it with the mouse. You may complete data entry into a cell by moving the cell pointer to a new cell or by pressing enter on the keyboard.
Just as we cut, copied and pasted text in a word processor we can perform the same operations on the contents of cells in a spreadsheet. Lets move the title one cell to the right by doing the following:
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Cut, copy and paste can also be used by the keystrokes ctrl+x, ctrl+c, ctrl+v respectively. |
Recall that when we worked with the word processor we were able to change to appearance of text in terms of: font type, font size, and format (Bold, italic, underline). We can do all of these things to the content of a cell as well. Try the following:
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You can select multiple cells the same way that you would select a large group of text in a word processor. Simply move the cell pointer to the first cell, then hold down the mouse button while you move the mouse over the desired selection. |
Just as we could align text on a page in a certain way, we can also align data in a cell in a certain way. Try the following:
You should now see all four headings individually centered in their cells.
You may have noticed that when we increased the font size of the main title the height of the row increased accordingly. We can also do this manually. Lets increase the width of the B column by doing the following:
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You can also change the column/row sizes by moving the mouse in the middle of two column/row names, then dragging the mouse until the desired size is achieved. |
Using this knowledge try adjusting row widths on your own.
Spreadsheet programs not only allow us to organize data, but they can also perform calculations on that data for us. Before we can demonstrate this, however, we must enter some data. Copy the table below into your spreadsheet (The upper left corner of the table should correspond to cell B7).
| Apples | 0.27 | 12 |
| Oranges | 0.27 | 12 |
| Milk | 3.69 | 1 |
| Fruit Punch | 2.99 | 4 |
| Salad dressing | 1.68 | 1 |
| Cookies | 4.98 | 1 |
| Chicken | 5.27 | 1 |
| Steak | 6.72 | 2 |
| Paper towels | 3.67 | 2 |
| Buns | 0.45 | 17 |
In order to determine the cost of apples we would have to multiply 0.27 by 12. We can instruct the program to do this by doing the following:
We have just told the spreadsheet that we want to multiply the contents of cell C7 (which was 0.27) by the contents of cell D7. Since the cell pointer was at E7 that is where the result will go. The asterisk (*) is used to denote multiplication, addition is represented by +, subtraction is represented by - and division is /
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The = symbol is used to indicate that we will be entering a formula. You could also use the + symbol to start a formula instead. |
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The above example would have worked without the parentheses, but they help us organize what we are seeing and are necessary in large formulae. |
Try changing the price of apples to 0.30 to see what happens to the cost.
The next logical step would be to fill out formulae all the way down the cost column. This would be very tedious and unnecessary because there exists a tool to do this for us. The fill tool will look at what we have already entered (i.e. the formula) and recreate it with new cell names accordingly. Try the following:
The cost for each item is now calculated, if you move the cell pointer to one of the new cost cells you will see that the contents box shows the formula that was created for that cell. Another thing that the fill tool can be used for, is to fill in a series of numbers. Try the following:
We now have a numbered list of grocery items. The start number indicated which number to start counting at, and the step was how much to count by (1's, 2's, 3's, etc.).
At some point it may become necessary to insert a row or column. Lets insert a blank row after our headings by doing the following:
A column is inserted the same way, just select the column option instead of row. Follow the above instructions to insert a second blank row where we inserted the first.
We will now delete this second row by doing the following:
Sometimes the formulae we have to use can get very complex, to avoid this problem spreadsheets come with built-in functions. These functions are simply pre-defined formulae, all we have to do is state the name of the function and which cells we want that function use. Before we can practice with these functions, we must enter some more headings, enter the following:
Now we can use functions to easily determine all of these things. The first thing that we will calculate is the sub-total. Try the following:
The @ symbol signifies that we will be entering a function. The word SUM signifies the sum function (addition). After every function name we will include a set of brackets, inside these brackets are the cells that we wish to include in the performing of the function. In this case we are including cell E8 thru 17. Therefore, the cell that contained this function now holds the sum of the values in cells E8 thru E16. Instead of entering E8..E16 we could of also entered E8, E9, E10, E11, E12, E13, E14, E15, E16, but this would take much longer. Next we will do some multiplying. Try the following:
This function multiplies all the cells you give it. Using your new knowledge of functions, determine the total by adding the contents of cells C20, C22 and C24. We can also use functions to compute the avearge cost of all the items. Try the following:
Since it would be very difficult to remember all the functions that the spreadsheet has, we can also use the menu bar to access functions. To test this we will use a function to count the number of cells we give it. Try the following:
To demonstrate a concept try the following:
You might expect to find the same result in E13 as E14, since we copied and pasted the contents of E14 into cell E13. Forunately, the spreadsheet program interprets the copy and paste operation and translates the formula to suit the needs of cell E13. Sometimes, however, we simply want to copy and paste an exact formula. If we wanted to do this we would simply have to put a dollar sign in front of each collumn and row we name in the formula that we are copying. Here is an example, =$A$41 + $A$31.
Up until now, every number that we have entered appears exactly the way that we typed it in. We can, however, get the spreadsheet program to automatically make the numbers that we have typed in appear a certain way. To do this, try the following:
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You can select non-adjacent groups of cells by selecting the first group, then holding ctrl while you select the next group and so on. |
You probably noticed that all of the cells you selected now have numbers with two decimal places, a dollar sign and a comma every three digits. Feel free to try other numeric formats.
The spreadsheet software allows us to sort cells alphabetically or numerically. We will sort our list of grocery items by doing the following:
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If we had not selected the price, quantity and cost, the items would have been reorganized, but the prices would not have matched up properly. |
Charts are an excellent way of displaying data. They can be used to simplify data that appears complex or give needed emphasis to a single item, in a list of items. We can make a bar graph to compare the prices of various items by doing the following:
There are two main options that we can use when we are printing out our spreadsheets. The first option will make the gridlines visible on the printed page. The second option will show all of the formulae you have used instead of simply showing the results. You can print gridlines by completing the following:
You can view your functions/formulae by:
Headers and footers are items that will appear on every printed page at the top or bottom respectively. You can add a header or footer to the document by doing the following: